Arkansas Blog

An autopsy of an Iraq image

Want something to read? Try Peter Maass' reconstruction in the New Yorker of the most famous image of the war in Iraq — the toppling of a massive statue of Saddam Hussein after troops rolled into Baghdad. The image, most everyone knows now, was an oversold bit of triumphalism. Maass concludes that the fault in this episode lies more with the media than (as with Mission Accomplished) Bush administration packaging, but the image would have grave impact on events that followed.